Of Rubies and Pearls
by LittleMissBones
Summary: "Things constantly change: the year, the seasons, the individuals at court; but their love always stays the same until the day she comes along." Fifty different looks at the marriage of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon.


**A/N**: My first attempt at a Tudors story, with Henry and Katherine of Aragon as the main focus. This is also the first story I've published in months. Enjoy!

**Motion  
><strong>The way Katherine dances, all grace and poise and with the pride of nothing less than a Spanish Infanta, is the most beautiful thing Henry's ever seen; after he turns into elbows and knees during his sorry attempt to dance a quadrille with her Katherine takes pity on him and drags him into the gardens to teach him that no, it's the _other_ foot that leads.

**Cool  
><strong>Katherine's tears mingle with the rain as she steps out of the carriage and walks towards the monastery; as she prays to the Virgin Mary and all the saints she wonders how they can coolly ignore her pleas for an attentive husband and a healthy son.

**Young  
><strong>"We are still young, and by God's grace, boys will follow," Henry tells Anne as she cradles Elizabeth in her arms; as he leaves to go get drunk with Charles Anne wonders exactly how well he's practiced that line on Katherine.

**Last  
><strong>Katherine had loved him to her last breath, loved him even when he rejected her and sent her back to the terrible life of a Dowager Princess of Wales; and the moment he finishes reading her letter Henry finally realizes that _this_ is what rejection feels like.

**Wrong  
><strong>Their marriage of incest was wrong is what he keeps telling himself; after Anne fails him again and again Henry begins to think that perhaps Katherine was right.

**Gentle  
><strong>Henry could never imagine Katherine to be anything but gentle and demure in every aspect of her life, so it's a shock to him when on their wedding night she flips him onto his back in bed and teases, "Now husband, it is time for you to see what we Spanish women can truly do."

**One  
><strong>He can be in the banquet hall, surrounded by a crowd of the most important people in the kingdom, but when the herald calls _Her Majesty, Queen Katherine of England_ everyone else disappears and she is the only one Henry sees.

**Thousand  
><strong>Katherine has had her heart broken by Henry before, but she has always picked up the pieces and stitched it back together again; after a while her it lays in a thousand shards of shattered glass in front of her feet, and she isn't sure she wants to pick them up again.

**King  
><strong>"I am the King of England!" Henry angrily shouts as Katherine refuses to give way once again; _you may be King_, _husband_, she thinks, _but I am the Queen of Hearts – not just the hearts of your people, but yours_.

**Learn  
><strong>Katherine has learned everything she needs to be a proper Queen: how to curtsy, sew, dance, read, write, govern and more; what lesson she really needed, she thinks, was how to drag her husband's head out of its arrogant cloud.

**Blur  
><strong>_She's my sister-in-law_ young Harry thinks as he watches Arthur take Catalina around the banquet hall, but when she gives him that sorry gaze, that gaze which says _You'll still be my best friend even when I'm Queen_ his heart begins to ache and that's when the line begins to blur between them, because this is not how he should be feeling (not yet realizing that she's feeling the exact same way.)

**Wait  
><strong>It took eight years – eight long, horrible, wretched years – before Harry could finally marry his Catalina; after they've been crowned King and Queen he can't help but think that the wait was worth it.

**Change  
><strong>Things constantly change: the year, the seasons, the individuals at court; but their love always stays the same until the day _she _comes along.

**Command  
><strong>She can command him with just a gaze, Charles thinks, and it's very unusual to see the type of marriage where the King is the one stuttering 'yes dear' to the Queen; but considering all she's done for Henry he isn't really that surprised.

**Hold  
><strong>They grip each other tightly through every fear: his worries in ruling, the Scottish rebellions, her failing to produce his son, looking back now maybe it was that constant fear that drove them apart.

**Need  
><strong>Yes, Anne satisfies his need for chase quite well, but there's something about Katherine, something that's still beautiful and makes his fingers ache to run through her hair, coast down the soft planes of her body and make her gasp his name in that delicious accented _oh_ of hers, and it's no wonder he's torn between the woman who will bear him a son and the woman who is everything he ever wanted and more.

**Vision  
><strong>She is the picture of perfection on their wedding day, in her Spanish dress with the mantila covering her bright eyes and blushing features; and even after Katherine is gone Henry keeps the image with him, if only to prevent him from going mad with grief and guilt.

**Attention  
><strong>_Is it so wrong_, Katherine thinks as she watches Henry lave attention on yet another one of her ladies-in-waiting across the banquet hall, knowing all to well the consequences (another bastard son, more ammunition for him to show that she is not fit to be Queen of England), _to want my husband to notice me at least once?_

**Soul  
><strong>Katherine prays and prays and prays for Henry to return to her and save himself from damnation; after a while she doesn't really know who's soul she's trying to salvage, his or hers.

**Picture  
><strong>Henry sees them all now: the witch, the success, the horse, the whore, the last, mocking him for his failures; yet it's Katherine standing behind him, with her hand on his shoulder and something behind her eyes (_anger? hurt? love?_) that pains him the most.

**Fool  
><strong>_I was a fool_, Katherine thinks as she lies dying in her small bed, _I was a damn fool for loving you_.

**Mad  
><strong>It's how he perceives he will be remembered, of course, mad King Henry VIII, the damned fool who abandoned and left to die the best thing that ever happened to him, and the sad thing is there is nothing he can do to change that.

**Child  
><strong>They have Mary, of course; and Henry will forever be grateful that the Lord allowed he and Katherine to keep the Pearl of their World, but it isn't enough, she will never be enough

**Now  
><strong>Katherine was the religious one, and everybody knew this; the present where she is dead seems so devoid of any sort of happiness or joy; so the irony is not lost on Henry when he spends his days either on his knees praying for penance or looking at his own reflection, trying to discern the devil inside that screwed up his entire life.

**Shadow  
><strong>It flits across the corner of his eye as he's making his way back from Anne's chambers to his room by candlelight, the glint of silver trim on a lacy black mantila catches his eye, making him pause and whirl around in an unsuccessful attempt to find the spectre; but it's gone as soon as he turns around and he curses the shadows surrounding the castle for making him so paranoid.

**Goodbye  
><strong>Parting is such sweet sorrow, or so the saying goes, but Henry thought it would be more sweetness than sorrow when he finds out about Katherine's death (her words cutting through like the sharpest of knives, reminding him that she still loved him no matter what he threw at her), and perhaps...(_mirror, mirror, on the wall, tell me I've got a heart after all_).

**Hide**  
>She is the princess-in-hiding, the tucked away jewel patiently waiting to be brought out into the light, shining for all the world to see; but for now she must remain hidden away from the world, waiting for her day to come.<p>

**Fortune**  
><em>Fortune favours the brave<em>, the facts seem to say, and he has been brave with his splitting from the church and marrying Anne, his rightful love, the mother of his sons; but some days when the intrigues of the court are just too much and the fight to keep England soverign is too great he wishes that he could turn to the soft arms of his beautiful Spanish infanta and have her hold him while he cries.

**Safe  
><strong>_You'll always have me_, Henry whispers the first night they're together, clutching her protectively as she drifts off into a peaceful slumber; those are the words she keeps close to her heart when their marriage begins to falter.

**Ghost  
><strong>_Katherine_? Henry whispers as he takes the pomegranate that has somehow ended up on his pillow into his hand; the wind whispers through the curtains in the dulcet tones she did and he can only wonder what he is doing, hoping for the love of a ghost.

**Book  
><strong>The Good Book gives Katherine hope as Henry strays further and further away, and frankly she could use all the reassurances she could get.

**Eye  
><strong>Anne's eyes tell him exactly what he wants them to tell her, showing the lust and desire he expects from her; Katherine's cornflower blues pierce him to his very soul and show him nothing but strength and defiance (not that Henry would admit her gaze just make his loins ache for her even more).

**Never  
><strong>Henry swore he would never hurt her (_but he did_), swore he would never abandon her (_but he did_), swore he would never again curse her to a life of misery and poverty (_but he did_), so it makes a little sense that Katherine would rescind on her part of the bargain in the afterlife (_go ahead, be with the ones you truly loved; I shall stay with Arthur_).

**Sing  
><strong>The soft lilt of a Spanish lullaby emerges from Mary's nursery and it brings a smile to Henry's face; little does he know that Katherine's song will keep him sane in the years to come.

**Sudden  
><strong>It's another shock to him, of course, as he watches her caravan depart for Ludlow and the Welsh marshes in order to avoid the plague, that he realizes no matter what he may say about his Spanish wife (_she knew my brother_, _she has failed in every sense of being a wife_, _our marriage is wrong_), Henry is absolutely not ready to let Katherine go.

**Stop  
><strong>With Anne it's like his world is deliciously spinning in a whirlwind of desire and dancing; whenever Katherine enters with the grace and poise of nothing less than a goddess his world completely stops, and he doesn't know if he wants the spinning to start again.

**Time  
><strong>Time can heal everything: scars, homesickness, the loss Katherine felt at the loss of her children; yes, time can heal everything except her poor, wretched, irreparable heart.

**Wash  
><strong>It's the sins of their lives they can't clean away, all of the guilt and the secrets and the pain, and that is what hurts their love most of all.

**Torn  
><strong>Anne hands him the shirt she fixed for him, the neat little stitches gracefully repairing the hole he made during jousting; but even so there's something wrong with the way the little seams are sewn together and he curses himself for once again for comparing her to Katherine.

**History  
><strong>In another life, they would drink a little too much ale one night; in another life they would tumble into her bed; in another life she would have given him the son he always wanted; but in this life everything stays the same, and it is her cross to bear.

**Power  
><strong>Her mother and his father both taught them that power was the most precious, important thing to ever have and to stop at nothing to keep it; now that they're older they realise how wrong they were and the most important thing they could have was each other.

**Bother  
><strong>It does bother Katherine, whenever Henry is flirting with other women and not paying any attention to her, but she turns her eyes away like the good wife she is (what she doesn't realize is how much it irritates Henry to have other men flirting with _his_ Katherine).

**God  
><strong>Katherine doesn't know what Henry is thinking, playing God not only with their marriage, but the church itself, and she can only hope he'll stop with this madness before his soul is completely doomed.

**Wall**  
>It's like he's hits a wall when he's arguing with Katherine, all stubborn and defiant; and Henry can't think of another wall he can't bear to climb over because his life would be too boring.<p>

**Naked**  
>She remembers their first night in the marriage bed together, how she felt almost ashamed of her thin frame after he had peeled off her shift and left her feeling so <em>exposed <em>and how Henry had taken her into his arms and whispered that she was beautiful; she would give anything to go back to that day now, to when they both thought that love was the only thing they needed to stay together.

**Drive **  
><em>What did I do wrong<em>, Katherine will ask herself in the last days of her life, when she is lying in her cold bed gasping for air, or Mary, or anything to take her away from the pain, _what did I do to drive him away?_

**Harm**  
>Henry would never do anything to harm her, would never do anything to break her trust in him, except when she finds out about the first (and second, and third, and fourth, and so on) mistress Katherine begins to doubt exactly how much fidelity Henry placed in their marriage vows.<p>

**Precious**  
>Love is a most precious thing, and no matter how much time passes or how many wives or mistresses he finds Henry will always punish himself for losing Katherine's.<p>

**Hunger  
><strong>The way Henry gazes at her sometimes, as if he was a starved dog and she was a platter of meat waiting to be devoured, has her feeling hopeful; night after night, as she falls asleep alone in her cold bed causes it to disappear entirely.

**Believe**  
>It's a matter of time before their marriage falls apart, before both of their worlds shatter and crack and fall into a million little pieces, but both of them will keep holding on until they must let go, because believing in something broken is better than believing in nothing at all.<p> 


End file.
